Michigan State basketball<\/a> had to get back to basics and work out some issues. And the 0-6 Georgia Southern Eagles presented the perfect opportunity to do so.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\nMichigan State may have started slow in the first few minutes, but hard-nosed defense allowed the Spartans to pull away extremely quickly. Allowing just 11 first-half points, MSU hit a 25-3 run to put the game in hand as the first half came to an end. They then continued the trend into the second half, and never let up. Even with the starting lineup adjustments and tweaks, Michigan State cruised to an 86-55 victory on Tuesday night against the Eagles. <\/span><\/p>\nHere is the good, great, bad, and ugly from the win.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\nGood: Roster adjusting<\/b><\/h3>\n
It\u2019s no secret that Michigan State\u2019s roster has been shaky to say the least this season. The main reasoning behind the Spartans’ fall out of the Top 25 was due to their starters underperforming. Some have begun to figure it out, but not all. Tom Izzo took this get right game as an opportunity to shake things up and try and get the best out of his veterans. Even after one of his best games this season against Arizona, AJ Hoggard was relegated back to coming off the bench. As was Carson Cooper after his short stint in the starting lineup. Tre Holloman and Mady Sissoko replaced the two. Tre responded quite well, with 10 assists and seven points. Sissoko would have 10 points and four rebounds.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\nIt was a little surprising seeing AJ out of the starting lineup after playing quite well on Thanksgiving night against Arizona. Tom Izzo has such high expectations for his veteran point guard that his performance was still not up to par. Izzo even mentioned it as such.<\/span><\/p>\n\u201cI\u2019m trying everything I can try to try to get AJ to play at a level that I think he\u2019s capable of playing at,\u201d Izzo said. \u201cI\u2019ve pampered him, I\u2019ve yelled at him. I said we\u2019re going to try something different.\u201d – Tom Izzo regarding Hoggard playing to his potential\u00a0<\/span><\/p><\/blockquote>\nAt the very least, Izzo is attempting to shake things up. He knows that this team will only go as far as the veterans take them. And Izzo has to awaken them one way or another.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\nGreat: Defense<\/b><\/h3>\n
Michigan State\u2019s defense on Tuesday night was stellar. Specifically in the first half, the Spartans absolutely suffocated Georgia Southern. Now, you can argue that the 0-6 Eagles were simply missing shots on decent opportunities. That may be true, but holding a team to just 11 points in the first half deserves credit. Michigan State forced as many turnovers, 11, as Georgia Southern had points in the first 20 minutes. <\/span><\/p>\nMichigan State basketball was firing on all cylinders on the defensive end for the first half.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\nThe second half was less dominating, from a defensive stand-point at least. The Spartans would allow 44 points, compared to their 11 in the first half. This was likely due to more aggressive lineup tweaks as the game was over before the second half even began. It\u2019s thanks to this decent second half from the Eagles that Michigan State actually ended the game with a higher defensive field goal percentage than their season average. Coming into the game, MSU was ranked sixth in the country with a defensive field goal percentage of 35.5%. They would finish against the Eagles on Tuesday night with 40 percent.<\/span><\/p>\nBad: Freshmen<\/b><\/h3>\n
There is a caveat to this b<\/em><\/span>ad<\/span><\/i> section. Most of the freshmen played well on Tuesday night against Georgia Southern. Jeremy Fears led the way in bench minutes with 18, and looked good during his time. He finished flirting with a double-double, 10 rebounds and six points. Coen Carr looked OK, but deserved some more criticism from Izzo and the coaches as he had just four rebounds and zero points. After the game, Izzo mentioned Carr was \u201cstruggling to defend perimeter players but showing the strength and toughness needed to go inside and battle on the boards.\u201d\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\nXavier Booker was the final freshman to see the floor, as Gehrig Normand is still expected to redshirt. Booker looked the most out of place and lost on the floor. He missed some shots, which is to be expected with inexperience. But what was more concerning was his lack of effort and constantly finding himself ball watching. Countless times, Booker did not get back on defense leading to easy buckets for the Eagles. And Tom would subsequently be forced to sub Booker out.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\nAs I mentioned, not all of the freshmen deserve to be a part of the minutes reduction. Fears has been a great third guard behind Holloman and Hoggard, and for a majority of the year, Carr has looked ready as well. Unfortunately, Booker seems to have both the most potential, but the largest project. The time will come for him, but Izzo seems to be right when he says some of the freshmen just aren\u2019t ready to play. <\/span><\/p>\nUgly: Early cold shooting streak<\/b><\/h3>\n
There were a few minutes that were cause for concern to start this game against Georgia Southern. After Tyson Walker hit a quick 3-pointer to start the game, followed by a close jumper by Mady Sissoko, the offense then went cold. Michigan State would miss their next five shots. It\u2019s thanks to some early free throws that MSU didn\u2019t give up the lead. Shooting has plagued this team all year, something not many saw coming. <\/span><\/p>\nLuckily, Michigan State was pairing this cold streak with intense defense.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\nUnlike other games this year in which we saw the Spartans continue to shoot poorly, Michigan State basketball began to drive to the basket and score in other ways, leading to its 25-2 run to close the first half. You can point to the lineup changes for the reasoning behind the cold shooting during the first five to seven minutes. Regardless, not ideal against an extremely subpar Georgia Southern team.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Let’s dive into it.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":5,"featured_media":9402,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[187],"tags":[199,291,245,190,189,285],"class_list":["post-9381","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-basketball","tag-a-j-hoggard","tag-coen-carr","tag-jeremy-fears","tag-michigan-state-basketball","tag-michigan-state-spartans","tag-xavier-booker"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/spartanshadows.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9381","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/spartanshadows.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/spartanshadows.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/spartanshadows.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/5"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/spartanshadows.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=9381"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/spartanshadows.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9381\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/spartanshadows.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/9402"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/spartanshadows.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=9381"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/spartanshadows.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=9381"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/spartanshadows.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=9381"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}